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Today I listened to the first game of spring training on *radio*. The Florida Marlins and LA Dodgers as covered by the Dodgers announcers, were on XM Radio and Internet Radio. I had hoped to hit a trifecta with local BCB radio also carrying the game, but the Marlins announcers were not covering it, so no local broadcast.
Only noticeable distinction was that the Internet was one to two seconds ahead of the XM audio. This is especially interesting when you consider that Internet audio is usually 15 to 30 seconds behind the live TV action. Unfortunately there was no TV coverage to compare with today - ESPN had the NY (of course) Mets and the Washington Nationals - so that ultimate four way comparison will have to wait until another day.
On the annoyance scoreboard, Internet radio dropped out once and required a pause and resume to restart the stream - not as bad as it often has been in past seasons, but it may well get worse as more games are carried. XM radio did not score any annoyance points at all, functioning normally. If XM gets any annoyance points over all, it would be because Internet radio carries all games, home and away announcers, while XM will only carry the home team announcers (or so I understand).
No matter how you look at it, as a baseball fan, things are getting better. Both on radio and on TV, with all the cable channel coverage of local teams. I will miss, though, the challenge of listening to a game direct from WSB, wondering what happened during that fade out. In that regard, Internet radio sort of keeps the thrill alive, when the stream clogs up.
W. Curt Deegan
Boca Raton, (South East) Florida
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